On June 1 NAS celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday as an organization. NAS was founded in 1987 by Dr. Stephen Balch and others. For several years before that the founding members had been meeting under the name Campus Coalition for Democracy. Dr. Balch at the time was a professor of political science at John Jay College. NAS was created to confront the rising threat of politicization of colleges and universities and to summon faculty members back to the principles of liberal education and disciplined intellectual inquiry.
To get a sense of what we've been doing for the last twenty-five years, see the History page of our website for some of our milestones.
NAS staff members commemorated the occasion with cake and champagne and a few statements by President Peter Wood on the enduring mission of the organization. We also intend to celebrate more publicly at our next conference, to be held in spring 2013 in New York.
